Tito’s Yugoslavia Consolidated

Abstract

Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953 marked the end of the tension and uncertainty which had characterised the previous five years. Henceforth Yugoslavia’s experiment with communism proceeded within a more stable division of Europe. While its international position remained in some sense ambiguous since it had interests in developing and sustaining working relationships with both East and West in the Cold War, its domestic organisation was innovative, dynamic and highly experimental. Above all, Tito’s Yugoslavia was, by the regime’s own admittance, peculiar to the specific circumstances of Cold War, retarded economic development and multi-ethnicity with which the LCY leadership had to grapple.